Horse Racing
25 June, 2024
Warracknabeal Racing Club build towards the future
This coming Friday, June 28, the Warracknabeal Racing Club will hold a race meeting catered for families as Mark Phelan concludes his first successful year as club president.
This week's meeting is free to attend, and Phelan invites everyone to enjoy the family atmosphere.
"It's a big week this week, and I hope many people come down to enjoy the afternoon," Phelan said.
"Come down at lunchtime to look at the horses. The Lions Club will be cooking a barbecue, and we will also have Finn's Fine Food from Mt Gambier."
"I invite everyone to look around, experience our great grassed area, and bring the kids down to play and look at the horses. It is an eight-race card with the first race kicking off at approximately 12:50 pm."
"We also have corporate packages available where a couple of companies bring their work colleagues to enjoy a great afternoon of horse racing and thank them for their service."
"After the racing, our employees run a bar for an hour with a spinning wheel where people can have fun and a variety of drinks are available."
Under Phelan's leadership, the club has become more family-oriented, and the Warracknabeal Cup at Easter was a massive hit, promoting that.
"We focused on the Easter event, where we did more work with Warracknabeal Action Group (WAG), and had a street museum on Sunday and a festival vibe about it," Phelan said.
"It was a big reunion for the town as many people have moved away over the years. They returned and visited family and friends; it was a great weekend. The weather was good, and we had kids' activities, making it a family-fun environment."
"We had something new for Easter: race ambassadors, which was a great success. Trophies were driven down the main straight with the ambassadors holding the cup. The trophies were presented to Lance Huebner, Emma Beaton, and myself at the finishing post."
"With that success, we will look to have different race ambassadors for all our cup meetings."
"We were interviewed by racing.com after the meeting, and they interviewed us from their Pakenham race meet."
It has been a massive year for Phelan. He lost his father at the start of February, and the club appointed a new manager, Emma Beaton, who took over from Lauren Reid.
"It was a great interview process, and Emma won the gig and was highly recommended for events coordination, not so much the racing side of things," Phelan said.
"She has helped move the club into the 21st century by getting good policies and procedures happening and working with Melbourne in Country Racing to get things online and electronic."
"Grace Morrow and Bernie O'Connor also joined the committee, and it was good to have youth and knowledge on the committee."
On Saturday, June 22, Phelan, Huebner, and Beaton were invited to a committee room at Flemington racecourse, where all country clubs were invited. There was a lot of networking and getting together there, and Phelan said it was a great day.
Moving forward, the club has big plans and is working on updating its facilities to hold more big events.
"At the betting area, we are getting a roof and roller doors put on that and are building it up to turn the club into an all-year-round function centre inside and out," Phelan said.
"We keep building on the future. Many people in Warracknabeal haven't been out there, and we want people to hire the place for events such as weddings, funerals, football functions, work breakups, and Christmas parties.
"We want to become a multi-functional area for racing and strive to build that for the community."